{"id":93163,"date":"2020-05-25T14:32:05","date_gmt":"2020-05-25T18:32:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=93163"},"modified":"2020-05-25T10:40:00","modified_gmt":"2020-05-25T14:40:00","slug":"department-of-veterans-affairs-secretary-robert-wilkies-2020-memorial-day-message","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=93163","title":{"rendered":"Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie&#8217;s 2020 Memorial Day Message"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Our country has been blessed with men and women whose sacrifices allowed us to flourish as individuals, as a society and as a nation. On Memorial Day, we pause to remember, honor and express our gratitude to all those Americans who lost their lives in uniform.<\/p>\n<p>The names of many of them are forever memorialized in our Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), State Veterans and American Battle Monuments cemeteries across our country and around the world.<\/p>\n<p>It is true that this Memorial Day is somewhat different. As we fight the COVID-19 pandemic, we do not gather as we normally would to honor our nation\u2019s heroes. But we can still remember and honor them by spending a quiet moment paying homage to their courage and sacrifice.<\/p>\n<p>I also encourage all Americans to pay tribute to deceased Veterans by visiting the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vlm.cem.va.gov\/\">Veterans Legacy Memorial<\/a>. This site contains a memorial page for each Veteran interred in a VA national cemetery. Since May 14, online visitors have been able to leave a written \u201ctribute\u201d in memory and appreciation for a Veteran\u2019s service.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.va.gov\/opa\/pressrel\/pressrelease.cfm?id=5455\">Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">As we remember our slain service men and women today, pray God&#8217;s blessing, comfort, and peace on their families as they continue to grieve. Our freedom is not without sacrifice. Our debt is one we can not repay. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/MemorialDay?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#MemorialDay<\/a> &#x1f1fa;&#x1f1f8; <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/M8CfRvvd0H\">pic.twitter.com\/M8CfRvvd0H<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Benjamin Watson (@BenjaminSWatson) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BenjaminSWatson\/status\/1264925360271036417?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 25, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our country has been blessed with men and women whose sacrifices allowed us to flourish as individuals, as a society and as a nation. On Memorial Day, we pause to remember, honor and express our gratitude to all those Americans<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=93163\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[209,438,106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-americau-s-a","category-death-burial-funerals","category-military-armed-forces"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=93163"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93169,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93163\/revisions\/93169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=93163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=93163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=93163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}